Go Go RocketParty

Girl Scouts

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:18:57 -0400

The girls and women of the Girl Scouts are a tough bunch, I’m sure they will have no trouble defending themselves against a small, cranky pack of elderly pedophiles.

lightthiscandle: 11/18/65: “‘It Was This Close, Chris:’ Paul...

Wed, 09 May 2012 22:13:21 -0400

lightthiscandle:

11/18/65: “‘It Was This Close, Chris:’ Paul Haney (left), public affairs officer for NASA’s Manned Spaceflight Center, shows Gemini Flight Director Chris Kraft how close the barrel of a gun was to Kraft’s jaw during a jet flight high above the Gulf of Mexico last night. Haney and Kraft, among 20 Gemini officials on the plane, helped subdue the gun wielder after the 16-year-old youth shot several holes in the floor of the cabin.”

This entire story was terrifying.

I didn’t know of this until tonight. It’s awesome and terrifying.

"The answer is to reform capitalism. The world’s productivity revolution is outpacing the political..."

Tue, 08 May 2012 13:08:43 -0400

“The answer is to reform capitalism. The world’s productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is widening inequality coupled with slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment.”

- (via Robert Reich)

This. Yes.

This is how you use a sample pad.

Tue, 08 May 2012 09:30:11 -0400

This is how you use a sample pad.

Robert Reich: The Stall Has Arrived

Mon, 07 May 2012 19:16:26 -0400

Robert Reich: The Stall Has Arrived:

robertreich:

The economy has stalled.

Friday’s jobs report for April was even more disappointing than March. Employers added only 115,000 new jobs, down from March’s number (the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised the March number upward to 154,000, but that’s still abysmal relative to what’s needed). We…

This needs talked about now. A lot. It’s bad, but doesn’t need to remain that way. Serious conversation about the economy, by people in power and those not, with a little foreword thinking, can make this a pivot rather than a historical bog.

"The situation of Instagram is that of an isolated island economy, separate from the outside world,..."

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:15:55 -0400

“The situation of Instagram is that of an isolated island economy, separate from the outside world, being linked to the global economy. How do we figure out what it’s worth to the global economy? How do you value a closed system?”

- (via Interconnected)

Descriptive camera

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:08:47 -0400

Descriptive camera

Space mining. We live in the future.

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:05:47 -0400

Space mining. We live in the future.

"And hey, why don’t we get real about this? Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out..."

Tue, 01 May 2012 13:01:36 -0400

“And hey, why don’t we get real about this? Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out another 28 percent of their income to charity. Most rich folks like to keep their dough. They don’t strip their bank accounts and investment portfolios. They keep them and then pass them on to their children, their children’s children. And what they do give away is—like the monies my wife and I donate—totally at their own discretion. That’s the rich-guy philosophy in a nutshell: don’t tell us how to use our money; we’ll tell you.”

- Stephen King (via The Daily Beast)

"In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large..."

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:05:13 -0400

“In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is now dominated by a smaller set of larger even more powerful tech conglomerates. And their hold on the business seems to be getting stronger.”

- David Lowery - Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss? -Full Post | The Trichordist (via manage)

"What we’ve seen over the last 30 years is a war on the human imagination. That’s the other starting..."

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:09:43 -0400

“What we’ve seen over the last 30 years is a war on the human imagination. That’s the other starting point for this book—that in 2008 we had this crash, and all these assumptions we’ve been told we’ve had to accept for 30 years came crashing to the ground along with the market. One of them is the assumption that markets are actually self-sustaining. Obviously not true. Another one was that the people running them are competent. For years we were told that they aren’t very nice people—they’re greedy bastards, actually—but they know what they’re doing. All other systems just don’t work. These guys are incredibly bright, they’re incredibly competent. No, it turns out actually that they don’t even understand the working of their own financial instruments, or as far as they do, they’re engaged in scams. They trashed the entire system. Assumption number three is that all debts ought to be repaid. Actually, no, debts don’t really need to be repaid, because AIG, who owes money, can wave a variety of different magic wands and debts can be made to disappear. Once you understand that the narrative we’ve been handed has been false, you’d think this would be the moment when you start thinking about larger questions: Why do we have an economy? What is debt? What is money? How could these things be organized differently? What do we need to keep and what do we change? You would think this would be the moment for international discussion about the basic assumptions that we’ve been making, and it seemed for about two weeks that it was going to happen.”

- David Graeber (via azspot)

"About 65 million years ago, the Earth was struck by an asteroid some 10 km in diameter with a..."

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:41:06 -0400

“

About 65 million years ago, the Earth was struck by an asteroid some 10 km in diameter with a mass of well over a trillion tons. We now know the immediate impact of this event—megatsunamis, global wildfires ignited by giant clouds of superheated ash, and, of course, the mass extinction of land-based life on Earth.

But in recent years, astrobiologists have begun to study a less well known consequence: the ejection of billions of tons of life-bearing rocks and water into space. By some estimates, the impact could have ejected as much mass as the asteroid itself.

”

- (via Technology Review)

“Poster series explaining complex philosophical theories...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:39:16 -0400

“Poster series explaining complex philosophical theories through basic shapes”

(via geniscarreras.com)

primegundam: Anatomy of an Imperial Dalek

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:40:33 -0400

primegundam:

Anatomy of an Imperial Dalek

"Capitalism did not arise by a set of natural laws which stem from human nature: it was spread by the..."

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:59:28 -0400

“Capitalism did not arise by a set of natural laws which stem from human nature: it was spread by the organised violence of the elite. The concept of private property of land and means of production might seem now like the natural state of things, however we should remember it is a man-made concept enforced by conquest. Similarly, the existence of a class of people with nothing to sell but their labour power is not something which has always been the case - common land shared by all was seized by force, and the dispossessed forced to work for a wage under the threat of starvation or even execution. As capital expanded, it created a global working class consisting of the majority of the world’s population whom it exploits but also depends on.”

- Anti-capitalism 101 (via azspot)

"Organized gambling is a scam. And it particularly preys upon people with lower incomes – who assume..."

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:54:16 -0400

“Organized gambling is a scam. And it particularly preys upon people with lower incomes – who assume they can’t make it big any other way, who often find it hardest to assess the odds, and whose families can least afford to lose the money.”

- (via Rober Reich )

theatlantic: the-overlook-hotel: Stanley Kubrick’s personal...

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:46:18 -0400

theatlantic:

the-overlook-hotel:

Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s novel, The Shining. This well-worn book, now housed in the Stanley Kubrick Archive in London, is filled with Kubrick’s notes and comments. Many passages are highlighted, and Kubrick has filled the margins with hand-written notes that run the gamut from notating passages that inspire him, to crossing out sections he found silly.

(click images to enlarge)

Today, in found objects.

azspot: bartcop.com

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:42:04 -0400

azspot:

bartcop.com

ianbrooks: “Lonely Man” by Edno Pereira Jr. Shirt available...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:01:44 -0400

ianbrooks:

“Lonely Man” by Edno Pereira Jr.

Shirt available at threadless for $9.99 USD. See you, Space Cowboy.

Artist: deviantart / twitter / flickr

"Republicans have morality upside down. Santorum, Gingrich, and even Romney are barnstorming across..."

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:50:41 -0400

“Republicans have morality upside down. Santorum, Gingrich, and even Romney are barnstorming across the land condemning gay marriage, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, access to contraception, and the wall separating church and state. But America’s problem isn’t a breakdown in private morality. It’s a breakdown in public morality. What Americans do in their bedrooms is their own business. What corporate executives and Wall Street financiers do in boardrooms and executive suites affects all of us. There is moral rot in America but it’s not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It’s located in the public behavior of people who control our economy and are turning our democracy into a financial slush pump. It’s found in Wall Street fraud, exorbitant pay of top executives, financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign “donations.””

- Robert Reich (via azspot)